The dead deer's innards are exposed by a perfect neck-to-belly incision. It's time for Dave Wolfgang's students to dig in. "Who would like to take the hearts and lungs out?" the Pennsylvania State University veterinary professor asks four volunteers wearing aprons and heavy-duty rubber gloves.

Venison 101 class isn't for the faint of heart.

For $99, a deer hunter, a cook, or the just plain curious can spend a day at Penn State's meat laboratory to learn the ins and outs of what to do with a prized carcass

(Some families have deer heart stew for supper the day a deer is killed. Once I went to donate blood and the tech told me I had too much iron in my blood. I told her that’s because I cook a lot of venison in my cast iron dutch oven, so I always get plenty of iron both from the venison and from the cast iron.)

I'll let the deer process man do the butchering, he has the right equipment and does a better job.

The part everybody REALLY needs to know how to do is to field dress promptly, thoroughly, and in a sanitary way. The deer process man can't do a thing with venison that wasn't field dressed correctly and right away. Best venison I ever ate was shot, carried back into deer camp on the spare tire of my Land Cruiser, and dressed out within 15 minutes.

Two essential tools: a short-bladed folding knife, around 3 1/2 to 4", and a spool of dental floss. A hoist and a clean water source are nice too. (Our deer camp had a concrete pad with a block and tackle, and a hose with a nozzle nearby.)

Gloves do get in the way, but if you are doing many at a time, it’s that or badly chapped hands. I boned out and packaged 7 deer in six days a couple weeks ago with gloves and a wrist brace. Lot of work but the meat can’t be beat!

You use the dental floss to tie off the top and bottom of the entire digestive tract, to keep the stomach and intestinal contents from spilling into the body cavity and contaminating everything.

Best way to do this is to tie two loops of floss loosely around the esophagus, squeeze it firmly between the two loops, and pull them taut. If you can tie a package bow one-handed you can do this too - otherwise get somebody to pull it tight for you. Then you do the exact same thing at the OTHER end. If you haven't gut-shot your deer, this makes a nice neat package and once you clear away the mesentery membrane the digestive tract should wrap up nicely and you can just drop it into a plastic garbage bag.

We were working with a local Scout troop while stationed at Fairchild AFB. Took the young men out on a 3 day campout. Dinner the first nite was on us adults. No breakfast.

For lunch we gave everyone a chicken. A live chicken.

Once they got their heads (and tummy) around that - out came dinner.

Bunny rabbits. (purchased locally and known to be disease free) We actually cut down trees and BURNED them to cook over.

At the end of the camp, the youngsters were very pleased with themselves.

The phones calls started coming in Tuesday - from *horrified* Mommies. The dads were plenty happy and wanted to know when the next camout would be held.......they wanted to come and participate. The Troop gained in size overall.

I vaccuum seal the meat with a Foodsaver. Greatest boon to frozen food ever. Meat will keep darn near forever without freezer burn. I have messsed up my rotation and found packages of meat 3 years old in my freezer with were just as good as the current year’s. I can’t say enough good things about the pro Foodsaver! The extended family has three freezers full of Michigan bean fed venison. And none of it will have feezer burn.

Relax. The guts were put well out in the heavy brush where the scavengers could dispose of them.

But I wasn't going to drag the guts all the way down through deer camp without a plastic bag. If you want blood and miscellaneous deer parts decorating the ground in front of YOUR cabin, be my guest, but nobody there felt that way.

I’ve never butchered a hog but I’ve heard the stories from my wife of how when she was young they would kill the hog, raise it up with the back hoe, and go to work. My wife comes from a contractors background, hence the back hoe.

I use a commercial wrapper but the wrap costs about 1/10 that of the food-saver bags.

You have my attention with the cost savings. What do you mean by commercial wrapper - is that a method your butcher uses? The last time I had a commercial butcher process our meat, at least ten years ago, it didn’t last long before it started to freezer burn. Well, maybe corn fed is better. Just happens my brother mostly grew beans this year :)

they made a class of this? wow, i could give that class in my uncle’s garage every november...FOR FREE! and you can even go on the hunt with us and all the new guys must take a bite out of the heart, SPIRIT OF THE DEER!

Doesn't have to be tomatoes. Anything that is naturally acidic will absorb of some amount of iron, typically in compound form, when cooking in cast iron.

Some time ago, 1800s, one common palliative for anemia was to boil vinegar in an iron pot and use the result in place of 'plain' vinegar. (Side note: vinegar -- acetic acid -- is a quite remarkable chemical.)

(Also: don't put aluminum foil over your lasagna or your barbeque. You get holes in the foil and nasty little lumps of blackish-grey aluminum oxide all over the food.)

So long as you cook an occasional meal in a Dutch Oven, you should have plenty of iron in your diet! Our Boy Scouts should all be just fine (I'm a bit of a Dutch Oven specialist -- real men don't eat quiche, but they never complain about Mountain Man Breakfast: sausage, hash browns, onions and green peppers sauteed in a dutch, covered with beaten eggs, shredded cheese and salsa, then pop the cover on, 9 coals under and 15 coals on top, about 20-25 minutes, until the eggs are set.)

Once I went to donate blood and the tech told me I had too much iron in my blood.

It's not good to have too much iron in your blood. It could be caused by your diet or by a iron-retention disorder such as hemochromatosis. Excess iron can damage various systems in your body. You should have this checked out by a doctor.

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